bookandnovel Chapter 932 An Invincible Position
Chapter 932 An Invincible Position
Chapter 932 An Invincible Position
"The loyalty of the Royal Guard is beyond question, and I will not disobey orders for the sake of my own reputation."
The captain quickly grabbed the regimental commander's hand, which was holstered on his gun: "Commander, don't you think about why the local military and police aren't firing their guns and why they're sending you to do this dirty work? They're willing to use any force if necessary, but the question is, what does 'if necessary' mean? What does 'any force' mean? These women didn't storm the police station or seize weapons; they just smashed up a few bakeries. Do they really need to use guns for something like that?"
Even if you really can't persuade them, you can always follow the example of the military and police and pick up shields and sticks to disperse the crowd!
"Give me a chance, I'll try to convince these women!"
Molotov hesitated for a moment, then took out his gilded pocket watch and glanced at the time.
"You only have ten minutes."
The captain saluted and dashed off like lightning.
Having practiced the breathing technique exclusive to the Guardians, he moved as nimbly as a cat.
This is also why the Guards Division is far more powerful than ordinary soldiers.
Every month, they receive specially made potions from the military, which, combined with their unique knightly breathing techniques, make them formidable fighters.
Of course, this combat power is mainly supported by potions. Once these guards retire and lose their potion rations, they will quickly become mediocre, thus ensuring that even if the Breathing Technique is leaked out, it will not cause any major problems.
Mashilov took only a minute to push a cart abandoned by the roadside and block the front of the march.
He stood on it and shouted, "Ladies, I am Captain Mashilov of the Grenadier Guards Regiment. The Winter Palace is just ahead. If you continue forward, you will be considered rebels."
Ladies and gentlemen, even if you don't consider yourselves, you should at least think about your children. In these times, without a mother's care, who can survive this harsh winter?
A commotion arose in the crowd, and a woman wrapped in a tattered military coat shouted, "Our men died on the front lines, and almost everything that could be lit in our homes has been burned in the fire. Do we think we'll survive if we go back now?"
"You lackeys of the Tsar, you try to threaten us with death, don't you know we've already run out of options?"
"We want bread, not war!"
"Tell the truth, not lies!"
Seeing the crowd's agitation, Mashilov's forehead broke out in a cold sweat: "Just bear with it a little longer, just hold on a little longer. The war is almost over. You've endured these long three years, do you really want to fall in the final darkness before dawn?"
"lie!"
"fraud!"
"I've heard this bullshit that the war is almost over countless times. The Tsar must withdraw from all wars immediately!"
Mashilov wiped his sweat and shouted, "This time it's no lie, we're really close to winning! Please think about your husbands' honor. They are now heroes who have died gloriously, the epitome of the Russian army. If you continue like this, the honor they earned with their lives will be taken by the rebels!"
"Can honor buy bread? Can honor keep his wife and children from starving and freezing to death?"
“Sir, do you know my Seryozha? He was the child I raised with twenty years of painstaking effort. He died less than a week after he went to war. All I received in return was a meager pension that was not enough to support one person. Every time I received this money, I had to endure the exploitation and extortion of those rogue clerks. The promised rations required me to queue for three hours in the dead of winter, and I had to pray to God to have any chance of getting them.”
With red eyes, the woman vented her anger: "My second son was just coming of age when you dragged him into the reserve camp, ready to throw him to the front lines to die. My daughter froze to death in her swaddling clothes. If you think that such humiliation and pain is what a mother who works sixteen hours a day to support her child deserves, or what a heroic father who died for his country deserves, then please shoot me!"
Mashilov was overwhelmed by the women's angry accusations. He opened his mouth repeatedly, but no one listened to him anymore.
It has been a long time since the march began. The military and police have tried to persuade people, and even highly respected priests have been asked to reason with them and appeal to their emotions. If that had been effective, they wouldn't have needed to call in the grenadier guards.
boom!
Molotov fired.
It's pointed towards the sky.
He approached Mashilov and said in a slightly stiff tone, "The military is aware of your demands. The officials who withheld the pensions will be severely punished. Every family will receive their due pensions tonight. I swear on the honor of my family and the glory of the Grenadier Guards!"
A commotion arose among the crowd, and a woman with two braids shouted, "Will the Tsar withdraw from the war? When will our men be able to come home?"
Mashilov quickly turned to look at Molotov, repeatedly giving him meaningful glances.
He knew that Molotov, who always upheld honor, would not make false promises beyond his capabilities. Even punishing corrupt officials and making up for the withheld pensions would require the entire Boye noble family to exert all their efforts.
But now is not the time to stick to your damn Boyer aristocratic principles!
If we don't exaggerate a bit, how can we fool these women who have been deceived countless times?
Molotov fell silent. Taking advantage of the lull in the other's silence, Mashilov shouted, "It will, it definitely will! The war will be over by spring at the latest. The Allies can't hold on any longer!"
The woman with the braided hair suddenly sneered, "Still lying! How could you not know that we suffered another crushing defeat in Poland? Do you think you can deceive their poor widows just because you've blocked the news?"
Mashilov felt a wave of dizziness. How could these people know?
"Liar! Don't trust these henchmen of the Tsar!"
"Soldiers on the other side, look at us women! This is what your mothers and wives back home will look like once you go to the battlefield!"
Suddenly, someone recognized a soldier in the ranks and shouted, "Petro, yesterday when your mother went to church to pray, those noblemen kicked her out, saying that commoners didn't deserve to share a church with them. Now, are you going to point a gun at your fellow countrymen to protect those noblemen?"
"Vova, it's me. Are you going to shoot your aunt?"
The soldiers also became restless.
The 2nd Guards Infantry Division had also rotated through the Eastern Front. The three grenadier companies of the Grenadier Guards Regiment, although mostly from rural areas, also included many locals. No one could say for sure whether widows of former comrades had joined the parade.
For a time, even these soldiers, who were of outstanding quality and almost all of whom could wear infantry armor and fight the enemy in the trenches with chainsaw swords, began to waver.
Mashilov looked at his commander, only to find him slowly drawing a pistol from its holster, and stared in horror at him.
boom--
He fired his gun.
Blood blossomed on a woman's chest.
Gunfire erupted like popping beans, and by the time Mashilov screamed for Mashilov to stop, dozens of women had already fallen to the gun barrels.
Some soldiers stood frozen in disbelief, staring at their comrades.
"Damn it, I quit!"
"You killed my aunt!"
"I didn't want to either, it was the commander, the commander gave the order!"
Ptilov Arsenal.
After a fierce power struggle at the highest levels last night, the Tsar finally chose to compromise, banishing the heretical monk Rasputin from St. Petersburg and sending him back to his mage tower, three hundred miles away.
The military finally unleashed its most powerful resources, preparing to quickly eliminate this source of trouble.
Because the situation was deteriorating far faster than the military had imagined, bullets and bloodshed did temporarily halt people's movements, but at the cost of many garrison soldiers refusing to carry out the military's orders.
People started connecting with each other more and more frequently in private, and the whole of St. Petersburg was like a volcano that had been forcibly suppressed, with no one knowing when it would erupt.
The Don Cossacks handed over their camp to the newly arrived 2nd Guards Division.
Looking at the dark gun ports of the land cruiser and the powered armor covering the armored infantry from head to toe.
Tenniski thought that these faint sparks of the rebels would probably be extinguished in less than half a day.
The quartermaster asked in confusion, "Company commander, what is the new order?"
Tennis gave a wry smile: "What else could it be?"
That's what the Cossacks do for a living.
The battle lasted all day.
Even at dusk, the sounds of gunfire continued to echo from the arsenal.
This was unexpected by everyone.
The man who had so confidently asserted that the insurgents were no match for the Tsar's army was slapped so hard his face turned red, and could only force himself to say, "Just wait, by tomorrow at the latest, they will be wiped out."
"His Majesty the Tsar's army possesses countless powerful war machines and countless spellcasters. What right do we poor people have to resist him?"
Those who supported the insurgents could not refute the argument and could only pray silently.
The only remaining fighting force from the Putilov Arsenal uprising had become a banner in the hearts of the people of St. Petersburg, proclaiming to them: "The Tsar is not invincible, and the poor are not powerless."
"what happened?"
Faced with the military's accusations, the major general commander of the 2nd Guards Division was even more furious than them: "The intelligence you provided is completely wrong. The enemy has at least thirty spellcasters. Where did all these people come from?"
The fierce fighting of the day had resulted in casualties for the 2nd Guards Division that were almost comparable to those in a frontal assault on the German positions.
"Thirty spellcasters?"
The military personnel were all dumbfounded.
However, what they didn't expect was that when the next day came, the number doubled to sixty spellcasters!